


Take Me Home

by gals_being_pals



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 06:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4909504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gals_being_pals/pseuds/gals_being_pals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One shot based on the 5x02 sneak peek. For Paige. She's the reason it's not explicit. Blame her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me Home

Regina’s bottom lip trembles; she knows what she has to do but there’s no kind way to do it and she can see Emma right beside her, trying to be brave, trying to be strong, trying to be the woman she can no longer be. Regina saw her rip out a heart, saw her eyes red with bloodlust and her hands shake with an addiction to dark magic she has already fallen into. Emma can’t do this.

 

I saved you. Now save me.

 

She steps forward.

  
“I am the saviour.”  
  
Emma stares at her and Regina thought she was prepared for the crushed expression in those childlike eyes but she isn’t; it makes her heart scream and she longs for the blackness to take her back and swallow her up and dull the love in her.

 

The love for a woman she can never have.

 

The love for a woman she’s breaking.

 

“I’m the one who’s going to free Merlin from that tree, and then we can take care of the Dark One.”

 

She means it to sound ambiguous. To the knights who call it a demon, it can be the taking care with swords and prisons and punishment. To Emma, it can be kindness, a promise to help her, a promise not to let her go. But her voice has hardened to hide her pain and her tone lifts to something that’s almost a sneer and Emma looks at the dirt on the hem of her worn grey dress and Regina sees Miss Swan, her Miss Swan, her beautiful, dangerous, irritatingly honourable rival, slipping further and further away.

 

“And all go home,” she adds, her voice catching in her throat as she looks at Emma again. We’re taking you with us, she wants to say. We would never leave you behind. I would never leave you behind.

 

Emma looks at the parents who cursed an innocent child when they found out she had potential for darkness, who put her in a magical wardrobe instead of putting her first, who abandoned her on the side of a highway when she was hours, maybe minutes, old. They look back at her with a mixture of disgust and fear and she knows, she just knows, that they’re sending back. She’s screwed up for the last time. They’re just like every other family. Every other family except-

 

“Henry!”

 

He runs towards them.

  
“Don’t leave me out,” he implores. “I’m a man now. I can be useful.”

 

He’s standing between his mothers, and Regina smiles a little when she reads Emma’s expression. Love, and incredulity.

  
“Don’t rush away your childhood, kid.”   
  
“I’m fourteen! In Camelot, I could be married.”

 

Regina gives him a look. He’s still in trouble for his misadventures with the pirate.

 

“Do you want to get married?” she asks him.

  
“Ew, no way!”

 

Emma laughs, then pulls Regina aside for a second.

  
“Can we let him help?” she asks. She sounds strangely needy, and Regina’s powerless to refuse. Not that she’d been planning to.

 

“Henry, your other mother and I have decided that you may help.”

 

“But no going behind our backs, okay?” Emma adds. “I heard what you got up to with Hook.”

 

“Then why is it my fault?” Henry sasses. “He’s practically my stepfather. I’m supposed to do what he says.”  
  
“He’s not your stepfather!” Emma hisses. “And he shouldn’t even do what he says most of the time.”

 

Henry realises it might be better not to comment further. He goes to look at the tree and meet the knights, who seem intent on recruiting him.

 

“You’re right, you know,” Emma murmurs. “You are the saviour now.”

 

Regina straightens her jacket.

  
“Henry brought you home once. I intend to do it again. That’s all.”

 

There’s a long silence in which they both realise what she just said. Because when she said home, she did not mean David and Mary Margaret.

 

BREAK

 

Regina sits on the end of the bed in her underwear. She has her own room, she told Robin she needed to work, and she’s glad, now, because they’ve given her a long white nightgown very similar to the ones she wore- Anyway, she can’t wear it, and now she’s just staring at it, hating herself. How can she save everyone when she’s too weak to put on a stupid dress-

 

There’s someone at the door. Emma. She knows it’s her before she even makes a sound. Wincing, she throws the gown on over her head and opens the door.

 

“Wow, Regina, you look-”  
  
“Finish that sentence and I’ll kill you.”

 

Emma gulps, but steps into the room without another word.

  
“Sorry,” she murmurs. “I, uh, it’s not so bad.”  
  
“It is a nightgown,” Regina says, trying to convince herself, too.

 

“You could take it off,” Emma jokes half heartedly.

 

I wish, Regina’s traitorous mind responds.

 

Emma’s still in the grey dress, but her hair’s back to being puffy and she smells like cinnamon rather than the cocktail of sweat and forest she’d previously been sporting.

 

“Why are you here?”

 

Emma slumps on the end of the bed, her face suddenly crashing.

 

“It’s not my home,” she says. “It won’t be, not when we get back, because I’ll still be the dark one and they’ll still hate me and they’ll give me up just like everybody else and even Henry will realise eventually that I’m bad news and I can’t be trusted and probably that’s for the best because everyone I love dies, they all die or get hurt or throw me away like trash and he should never have found me, he’s better off with you…”

 

She dissolves into agonising sobs and Regina stands there by the door in her disgusting nightgown and grips the dagger in her fist as if it will somehow be able to help her. But she has a feeling commanding Emma to stop crying won’t help. She’s read that crying’s supposed to be cathartic. Maybe if she just lets it happen..?

 

I was just… Looking for you to be my friend.

 

Regina feels a tear dribble down her own cheek, a tear that’s been waiting to fall since they were by the tree, and she finds herself sitting on the bed beside Emma and reaching out to take a clammy, shaking hand.

  
“I won’t give up on you,” she whispers. “Henry and I… We’re your family. We’re your home.”

 

Emma takes a deep, shuddering breath.

  
“You’re my home,” she repeats.

 

Regina sets the dagger down on the floor and her arms wrap themselves around the woman who will always be her saviour, even when she needs saving, too.

 

“Yes, Emma,” she says, stroking thick, blonde hair. “I’m your home.”

 

“And you won’t leave me?”

 

“Never,” Regina promises, holding her tighter.

 

Slowly, Emma raises her head to look into deep, dark eyes. For the first time since taking the magic, she’s not shaking. She feels strong. And she knows exactly what she wants. Because she belongs in these arms, she belongs with this woman.

 

She’s finally found her home.

 

She leans in, reading Regina’s expression, wanting to kiss her cheek, soothe her tears away, but Regina jumps up suddenly.

 

“I, sorry, I-” Emma stutters.

  
“No!” Regina says forcefully. She tears ineffectually at the nightgown. “Do not apologise for what you were about to do. Just get this off of me.”

 

She’s crying harder now and Emma waves her hand, responding to the command without even thinking. The gown disappears and Regina stands in glorious black underwear and Emma shudders with a confused kind of desire.

 

“Why-”  
  
But then Regina’s mouth is on hers and she realises she can ask that question pretty much any time and it really isn’t that important. Regina’s tears slow as Emma gently rolls her onto the bed and rests on top of her, vanishing her own dress too.

 

“Take me home,” Emma murmurs. Regina’s only too happy to oblige.

 

 


End file.
